I participated in a podcast about healthcare reform.  We first listened to a Q&A between Dr. Val and Dr. Bob Goldberg at CMPI-Advance.  After that we were invited to ask questions.

Dr. Goldberg is into policy, not bedside healthcare, so I think my question threw him for a loop.  I asked about futile care and how it fits in with healthcare reform.  His answer took on a very strong “ethics” angle, which is not the direction I had intended for my question to go!

Despite my derailment, the other bloggers that participated in the call asked excellent questions - they are Kim, RN from Emergiblog, Dr. Wes Fisher,  Dr. Edwin Leap, The Happy Hospitalist, and Dr. Brian Vartabedian.

You can listen to the podcast at Better Health.  Thanks Dr. Val for the opportunity to participate!

Keith at Digital Doorway sent Bob off to vacation here in California!  We’ve had lots of fun hosting our visitor, as you can see in the pictures here, here, and here!  (That last one is my personal favorite!)

Change of Shift will be hosted here on Thursday, so get your submissions in!  codeblogrn at gmail, or use Blog Carnival.  Looking forward to reading some more!

In case you missed it, a new blog debuted on the most recent edition of Change of Shift.

That blog is The Adventures of Bob the Nurse and was started by none other than Keith at Digital Doorway.

Bob the Nurse is an action figure that lives a very, well, adventurous life.  His blog is a photo blog depicting his various antics.

I’m very fond of this concept (you know, stealing your neighbor’s garden gnome and taking pictures of it in front of Niagara Falls or some such place).  When I moved to California, I stole borrowed took the coffee pot from the dialysis office with me.  I bought it a little wig and some googly eyes and took pictures of it at interesting places along the way as I drove here from the midwest.  The dialysis nurses were some serious pranksters, so this was my final prank on them.

So I find The Adventures of Bob the Nurse very amusing.  My favorite picture so far is this one.  I think it’s hilarious.

Keith explains the concept for Bob the Nurse in this post.  If you think you can broaden Bob’s horizons even more and would like to have him as a guest, contact Keith or leave a comment on Bob’s blog.  I have already offered - there are lots of places around here I can take Bob :)

This is another non-medical post.  I hope you find it interesting, though!  My husband and I have taken up a new hobby that we are having a great deal of fun with, so I thought I’d share it in hopes that others will give it a try and find it just as fun!

It all started with a new iPhone app called Gowalla.  I play Packrat on Facebook and the developers gave us the heads up about a new game they made for the iPhone 3G.  Since I love Packrat, I decided to give it a try.

From Gowalla’s FAQ page:

Gowalla is a location-based travel game that rewards you for visiting both extraordinary and everyday places with your iPhone. In other words, it’s a bit like having a passport on your iPhone that displays beautifully designed “stamps” from all the places you visit.

In addition to collecting stamps from real-world locations, Gowalla also lets you gather virtual souvenirs, or icons, that can be traded with friends or hidden for others to find. Think of it like virtual geocaching.

It’s still a new game, so the only “featured” cities are Austin and San Francisco. I played in SF and had a good time with it.  Just because you don’t live in those cities, though, doesn’t mean you can’t play Gowalla.  Users who download the app can play in their own cities by making their own spots and encouraging others to join them.

Anyway, from Gowalla I started looking into real geocaching.  I used to think that geocaching was where outdoorsy types went out in the woods with GPS receivers to find certain trees or rocks or something.

I am not outdoorsy, and I know nothing of GPS.  Trouncing around in the woods is not what I consider a “good time.”

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was generally wrong about the whole thing!  When I typed my ZIP code into geocaching.com’s search engine, I found a cache hidden in a park less than a mile from me!  Not only that - I found that there are LOTS of caches hidden in various areas around my city.  No outdoorsishness required!

What is required, of course, is a GPS.  The iPhone 3G has a built-in GPS and you can even download some geocaching apps from iTunes for various amounts of money.  If you have no iPhone, GPS receivers are not horribly expensive, most going for around $100 or less… maybe even way less if you get one used from Ebay.

I wasn’t entirely truthful about there being a total lack of outdoorsishness.  All caches are hidden outdoors (except for a few virtual and other indoor caches), but thus far we really haven’t done any backwoods trouncing.  That isn’t to say we haven’t encountered our share of looking through tall grasses, tree trunks, and dark recesses.  Just yesterday we found a cache hidden in a place that I was not about to put my hand into.  Husband to the rescue! :)

Finding these little hidden treasures has been really fun.  We’ve been out walking almost every single day since we started. Sometimes we only manage about 1/2 mile, but there have been days that we’ve walked at least 3 miles.  For a couple of couch potatoes, that can add up to some great exercise for the week!  We’ve found parks that we never would have known about before…. so our 2 year old has LOVED going with us!  He gets to play in a new park almost every day.  We’ve learned a lot about our city, and we’ve come across some really interesting places.

It’s also changed the way I look at my surroundings.  There are so many clever hiding places to put caches!  I find myself walking around wondering if there’s something under that bench or behind those vines.  I’m fascinated by the thought that I’ve been walking by these little treasure hiding-places, never knowing they were there until now.

If you’ve been interested in reading about our new hobby, check out some books on Amazon that explain the sport in greater detail… Buying used books on Amazon is good for the environment; it’s even better if you can find these titles at your local library.  (There are even caches hidden in libraries!)

This one is written by geocaching.com:

But I like this one a little better. Maybe I’m more dumb than idiotic?

This is not going to be a medical post in the least.  Instead, it will be a post wherein I complain about our flat screen TV.

We bought it from Dell in the middle of 2006.  42″ flat screen, model # W4201C. I thought it was a little odd that my husband wanted a TV from a computer company, but whatever.  It has worked flawlessly… until about a week or so ago.

At that point, it started shutting off randomly by itself.  A few days later, it would do the “click” when we turned it on, and the power light would come on, but there was no picture for at least 5-15 minutes.

On Saturday, it simply refused to come on at all.

I called customer service and they had me do some dancing and unplugging and replugging, etc etc etc.  Then when that failed to work (shocking), I had to call the out-of-warranty phone #.  I did that… only to find out that while it would only cost $260 to diagnose/troubleshoot the problem, it would cost us $1,200 to ship it to Ohio.

Um.

Why am I writing about this on my blog exactly?  Well, because after a cursory search on Google, I cannot find a decent way to contact someone at Dell to complain.  I have a burning need to complain about this SOMEWHERE to SOMEONE because this TV is not even 3 years old yet.

So because I looooooove watching The Amazing Race (and last time I checked it was not possible to watch it online), my dear husband hooked up the TV his parents bought him before he went to college.  We are now watching an 18 year old 13 inch TV.

We plugged it in and it came on instantly.

So the moral of this story is to think twice about buying anything from Dell.  I am aware that our big 42″ flat screen TV is out of warranty, and I’m semi-happy to have it fixed, but if the only place I can send it to is 1400 miles away, then Dell - I am awarding you an official Customer Service FAIL.

Anyone need a 240 pound paperweight?

Ever want to know who my favorite reindeer are?  How about my most embarrassing moment at work?  I dished it all over at Addicted to Medblogs!

And that picture?  That is soooo totally me, right down to the white fur-lined knee-high platform boots :)

Not to be confused with “Change of Shift,” for which you should head over to Emergiblog to get info on how to submit your entry for the next edition! It’s quite easy - all Kim wants is your very first post!

We were recently on vacation and on our way to returning the rental car, we stopped to fill it with gas. I thought I’d go in and get the boy some pretzels to munch on until we could get him some real food. I picked out a bag and went up to the counter to pay for them. The clerk informed me that they were doing “shift change” and that I’d have to wait if I planned on buying that bag of pretzels.

Seriously? I have never been in that situation before. I was quite surprised. My face must have shown it, because she said that she’d allow me to have the bag if I provided exact change.

In the hospital, we have shift change at least every 8 hours. Our shifts are so varied, though, that it’s possible to have nurses coming and going every 4 hours. We even had shift change at 3am at times until that shift was eliminated. The biggest shift change is undoubtedly at 7am, the next at 3pm and the next at 11pm. We have a rule that there is to be no family in the unit while shift change is occuring, and we aren’t too keen on taking phone calls from family members either. For the former, patient privacy is the main concern. We talk to each other at the desk, but the desk is really out there in the open and anyone standing around can hear private information. For the latter, it is a courtesy to the nurses. The off-going nurse wants to give report and go home. The oncoming nurse wants to get report and start her shift. Constant phone calls that interrupt this just prolongs report and so we encourage people not to call for updates during these times.

I don’t find this unreasonable. Most other people don’t either. There’s rarely anyone around or calling at 7am, but the 3pm shift change is another story. There are usually lots of visitors and phone calls during that time. Most people understand, but there are a few that get angry at being told they have to wait until report is over.

I gotta tell you though. Shift change at a gas station was a new one for me.

Maybe you won’t be after reading this.

Like the title says, this post has nothing to do with nursing. Or medicine.

Ok then! I just read this on Yahoo! news:

“His father, Yosef Cavalin, frets about the piano-playing, noting that his only child recently broke his arm pursuing another passion, martial arts. He has won several trophies for his age group.

“Finals are coming and everything and he cannot play with both hands. He’ll just try to play with the right hand,” he says. “I don’t know how his grade’s going to be in piano. It worries me a bit.”

Um. Your kid, who 10 and is excelling in college level science courses, broke his arm while winning trophies in karate. And you’re worried about his piano grade? I can confidently say that no one is going to take the kid to task over a B in piano that he earned while playing one handed. I’m just saying.

And secondly, I have a plea. Go read this. I have thus far managed to snag some on Ebay here and there, but it’s not even available there anymore and I’m down to the last bottle. (If you keep it in the fridge, it keeps it from going icky.) It is truly unobtainable. So now I guess I have to switch to something else. Any ideas? It has to be leave-in. And it has to smell delightful. :)

Hmm… I guess I will tack on something nursing-related (kind of) seeing as how it just happened about 90 seconds ago. I started a business a couple of months ago and it doesn’t even matter what that is - what matters is that I haven’t sold a thing, have not brought in one penny. (I’m not ready yet! But that is besides the point.) Just now I received a call from some Congressman (well, his “aide”) who is proud of my business accomplishments and would like a business leader like me to get some sort of Congressional merit honor badge club ring and go to Washington to represent business leaders, blah blah.

I have been a bedside nurse for over 10 years. I have seen and done some incredible things. I have helped fellow humans through some truly horrible illnesses and have been there for them. I have been hit at, hit on, spit on, kicked at, thanked, hugged, and I’ve even had a couple of thank you letters to the hospital with my name mentioned. I have been a business owner for 40 days and have not yet managed to actually do any business. Yet this is what they want to send me to Washington for. This country is MESSED UP.

My last post referred to making new buttons for some blogs that I noticed that had gotten facelifts. Makeovers. New ‘do’s. However you want to say it.

One of those blogs belongs to PixelRN. A web designer in her previous life, she did a great job redesigning her blog. She explains how she did it in this post. She should put out a shingle, maybe redesign the sites for a few other bloggers, don’t you think? (hint/wink/hint) :)

Another post she did was about RSS feeds, and it is also very well done. If you are a blogger, you really really really need to know about RSS. For me personally, it doesn’t matter how good your blog is… If I can’t subscribe to your blog to read in Google Reader, I’m probably not going to read it. There’s another side to that. You can choose how much of your post shows up in a reader. Some bloggers make their entire posts available to be read, and some only allow a few sentences to show, thereby requiring the reader to click on “read more of this post” in order to read the rest of it. This also drives me nuts. I realize that we all like to have our stat counts be nice and high, but I almost never click through unless the first few sentences really grab my attention. That is not always easy to do!

(Addendum: Although Rebirth only provides partial feeds in Google Reader, I always faithfully click and read her entire posts. Because she rocks. And I don’t want her to stop blogging, as she has recently threatened to do.)